CPD article – Nudge, nudge think, think25 October 2011
Most health and safety professionals will, at some time, ask themselves these, or similar questions. There is never a simple answer to any of them but to address them, it is clear that the sub-conscious (often automatic reflexes) and decision-making processes need to be tapped into. Lately, the prime minister has appeared to embrace ‘nudge theory’, with a behavioural insight team, or ‘nudge unit’, reported to have been set up at Number 10 to look into ways in which the “levers of state” can be employed to improve our behaviour.1 But the concept of nudges can also be applied in the safety sphere, as it can be a way to impact individual sub-conscious decision-making through ‘choice architecture’.2 So what are ‘nudges’? According to Thaler and Sunstein,2 a ‘nudge’ is any feature of a person’s context that ‘nudges’ them to behave in a predictable way. Examples include:
Rather than restricting choice, nudges are designed to increase the likelihood that the more ‘responsible’, or ‘paternal’ choice is made from a ‘choice architecture’. Nudges can come in the form of written information, pictures, signs, colour rules, guidance, or even social, or peer pressure. They are typically low-cost and enable individuals to make decisions that they judge to be their own personal decision and to act without triggering conscious realisation. This is obviously a win-win situation – how often have we heard the saying that “the secret to get something done is for the boss to think it was his idea!” Well, nudges are no different but they work primarily on the sub-conscious and reflex level. Thaler and Sunstein used psychological theory and behavioural economics to produce different nudge categories. Each accounts for what behavioural economists refer to as ‘bounded rationality’,3 and they are intended to explain why people do not always make rational decisions that preserve self-interest. Table 1 opposite provides a summary of each. Nudge has a clear bearing on consumerism: the specific placing of products on shelves, or finding products in particular locations, together with the use of advertising, lighting, mirrors, etc. can ‘attract’ the consumer into purchasing specific goods. Here, budget permitting, individuals can shop as they choose but they may be ‘nudged’ into purchasing a particular product; this is choice architecture in action. In health and safety, however, unrestricted choice does not apply. Employers have not just a legal but also a moral obligation to protect the health and safety of their employees at work. But if choice architecture could be designed so that people are more likely to choose a healthy-option food in the canteen or, when faced with choice, to take the low/no-risk option when walking over machinery, it could potentially be a powerful tool in the health and safety professional’s arsenal. Choice architecture and nudges are already used in health and safety by many professionals to raise situational awareness, make safe behaviour the default action, promote employee participation and secure management commitment.4 Using visual communication to prompt safe practices and encourage situational awareness is also a long-standing tradition in health and safety – for example:
If nudging does improve situational awareness, this could counteract some of the arguments levelled at more traditional behaviour-based safety observation programmes. For example, focusing on frequent and observable behaviours can unwittingly direct attention away from ‘one-off’ causes of human error that could be a real low-probability event,5 but when it does go wrong the consequences are very serious, or even catastrophic. Choice architecture and nudges can help sub-conscious decision-making so that employees make the ‘right’ choice. This might be by using ‘Trojan Horse risk messaging’,6 or point-of-use pictures of safe practice to prime awareness at critical moments. Having a fresh pair of eyes as occasional observers to detect small changes in performance, which ordinarily might be obscured by frequent monitoring, could serve the same purpose.7 Using nudge in such ways could facilitate the involvement of new employees and people from outside particular work areas to participate in behaviour-based safety programmes, as well as in traditional risk assessments. This could also counter the old “well, it has always been done like this” or “it has always been like that” syndromes. An example of the use of ‘representative heuristics’ is the design of control panels, where care is taken to design dials with separate functions differently, so that their purpose is not confused. The value of worker involvement and team self-regulation methods in harnessing workforce commitment is widely espoused by health and safety pundits. As for social norms, the raft of research and evidence concerning safety culture and climate testifies to the influence of factors such as workmate attitudes and leadership style in nudging work practice. Nudges need not only apply at operative level but also at the organisational and industry leadership levels. For example, health and safety forums can help shape industry-wide norms by spreading lessons learnt. Nudges can also be used to embed company norms in multinational organisations spanning different cultures. Rolling out initiatives by specifying aims and core components while allowing the detail on how they should be run to be locally determined strikes a balance between standardising operations, and tailoring local cultural variations. Finally, for industries with a transient workforce, nudges offer health and safety practitioners an opportunity to affect behaviour in a way that is not afforded by more protracted safety initiatives. Nudging does what it says on the tin: it nudges people to make a particular decision. It is highly intuitive, and doesn’t smack of employer coercion to the same extent as terms like behaviour-based safety, or behaviour change. Nudges are also more applicable to one-off behaviours than more complex chains of actions. Nudging a construction worker to wear a hard hat is easier than nudging safe scaffolding assembly. Using shock tactics to etch risk in memory might also backfire if not backed up by clear and accessible advice and guidance on how harm might be avoided.9 Although nudges can be useful in raising situational awareness this is something of a paradox, given that nudges are intended to act on the sub-conscious. Cue and prompt-based nudges may work in that they bring awareness to a more conscious level, even if only momentarily. For example, painting the first few steps (at the top and bottom) of stairs may minimise the effect of distraction elsewhere and ensure that people are focused while walking down the stairs. Similarly, marking trip hazards or low-level beams with black and yellow strips may prevent people from tripping over, or bumping their head. The sub-conscious reflex part of the brain should ensure that a person misses such an obstacle if it is seen, assuming that the person is not distracted. Maybe our parents knew about choice architecture and nudges when they told us to “look where you’re going”. This makes sense and we all know this but how many of us actually take it into consideration when designing new equipment, or layouts? In essence, nudging could be seen as ‘management by stealth’. But as health and safety professionals, can we ignore the potential of nudges? They are low-cost, practical, and easy to understand – and they have attracted political attention. If the Government is looking at choice architecture and nudges to promote a healthier lifestyle, shouldn’t we too explore the potential of this approach to improve health and safety in the workplace? Further down the scale from the nudge is the ‘shove’, i.e. legal mandates for compliance.11 As such, shove has been argued as creating the conditions in which nudge is more effective. Consequently, practitioners could use nudges to reinforce compliance with shove. For example, creating a team social norm whereby team members habitually look out for each other would help compliance with the HSWA 1974. Tackling root causes also means attention must be paid to underpinning health and safety management systems, to norms that define the health and safety culture, and to particular leadership styles. In other words, while nudge cannot be a panacea, it seems that lasting improvements in health and safety are more likely if an integrated approach is taken using a combination of nudge, think and shove. Of course, they cannot depend on it alone to drive a positive safety culture – it is simply an addition to their already very heavy and large toolbox. But the concept could be just what is needed to drive health and safety performance to the next level. Practitioners are already using choice architecture and nudges within existing programmes, or in the development of new ones – the next step is conscious integration of choice architecture and nudges in the design of health and safety initiatives. The potential benefits are obvious, but as we are dealing with the basics of the ways in which people think and make decisions, the road may be long – but isn’t it always?! References There are ten questions in all, and the answers can be found at the end of the online version of this article at www.shponline.co.uk/features-content/full/cpd-article-nudge-nudge-think-think To learn more about CPD and the IOSH approach, visit www.iosh.co.uk/membership/about_membership/about_cpd.aspx 
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Nudge theory has recently been embraced by the UK Government but it is not new – indeed, most health and safety practitioners will have employed it at some point in their campaigns and initiatives to develop a positive safety culture without necessarily realising it. Dr Jennifer Lunt and Malcolm Staves appraise the potential merits of the theory for the profession.
